Picture of ambition
To Ferrari World and Yas Waterworld, Abu Dhabi has added an outpost of the Louvre as its latest attraction. It’s extraordinary, finds Laura Millar
The building couldn’t be any more different to the original one, in Paris. By the lush Tuileries gardens sits an elegant, sandstone, grey-roofed Renaissance palace, which stretches along several blocks on the bustling Rue de Rivoli. Situated here for several centuries, it first opened as an art museum in 1793. Currently, it’s the biggest in the world, covering nearly 73,000 square metres, and containing around 38,000 objects, dating from prehistoric times to the 21st century. Its most significant nod to modernity is the famous glass Pyramid which sits in its main courtyard – and which serves as the main entrance–a then controversial addition by Chinese american architect, IMPei, which dates from 1989.
In contrast, today I am staring at a series of angular, Grecian-style, bright white cubes, their walls dazzling me with reflected sunlight. Covering their contents is a gently curving, contact-lens shaped roof, made of dull, silver steel, its layered,
It will borrow works from some of France’s most famous galleries
geometric design punctuated with eight-sided, star-shaped holes. Behind me are sand and palm trees; in front is the shimmering turquoise surface of the Persian Gulf, on which, in the distance, float oil tankers and container ships. On the far shore are clusters of steel and glass skyscrapers in the emirate’s downtown district, looming above the beach.
This is the finished result of a project which has been ten years in the making. There’s no question that this is a bold and audacious enterprise; making a museum on the site of a dusty, neglected corner of the UAE’S biggest emirate, and hiring one of the world’s most renowned architects to do it, at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion, is not something undertaken lightly. But it’s part of Abu Dhabi’s move to be seen as a cultural destination, rather than just as an oil-rich state which, to date, is mainly known for its annual Grand Prix and its impressive, and photogenic, Grand Mosque.
The idea was conceived in 2007, and a partnership with a conglomerate called Agence France-museums was struck, whereby Abu Dhabi’s desert outpost will borrow works from some of France’s most famous galleries, including, obviously, its own Louvre, as well as the Pompidou Centre and the Musée d’orsay. To that will be added works which the emirate owns itself, and it will contain 12 permanent galleries as well as space for temporary exhibitions.
Initial signs are unprepossessing. I reach the site from my hotel on Yas, one of Abu Dhabi’s 200 islands, along wide, mostly empty, multi-lane highways. The car is king here; home to 1.5 million people, the emirate covers 375 square miles, with the most concentrated area in downtown Abu Dhabi, studded with high rise hotels and towering office blocks. In between, however, there is a lot of space.
There is plenty of that on Saadiyat Island, which has been earmarked as the emirate’s new Cultural District. The new Louvre is just the start of a plethora of ambitious building projects, including a branch of the Guggenheim museum, designed by Frank Gehry, the same architect who created its New York and Bilbao outposts, and a national museum named for the late Sheik, Bin Zayed, by Norman Foster. There will also be a performing arts centre, designed by Zaha Hadid, although none has actually been started yet.
Abu Dhabi’s Louvre is the brainchild of French architect Jean Nouvel, whose other projects include an art museum in Shanghai and the National Museum of Qatar. From the outside it looks clean, and simple; inside is more complex, and clever. Grids on windows offer tantalising glimpses to the water outside which laps at the museum’s sides, filtering out the harsh desert sunlight. There are also internal pools, which reflect the roof above them. Interconnected
galleries are broken up by relaxation areas, which offer views onto an outdoor terrace shaded by the layered steel dome. There, the grey slate floors are dappled with dancing rays of light which have broken through its gaps. It conveys a sense of space, and lightness; a thoroughly modern setting for the history it contains within.
This Louvre, however, is not laid out as many traditional galleries are. Works are not arranged by era, by artist, or by school; they are collected by theme. Works by Degas and Whistler share a room with carved wooden Polynesian totems; sculptures of semi-nude, muscled Greek youths jostle with 18th century portraits of the buttonedup upper classes by British painters. The idea is to tell the story of humanity, in 12 ‘inspiring’ chapters. But it does progress more or less chronologically, so that you start in Paleolithic times, and end in the 21st century.
At present, the museum only contains a few hundred works, and these are given plenty of room to breathe. As a result, walking around is fairly straightforward; seeing everything took me a little under two hours. There are few big showstoppers, but there are some works you definitely shouldn’t miss. One of the first things you’ll see, in ‘The First Villages’ gallery, is a twoheaded Jordanian statue dating from around 6,500BC, one of the oldest known in our history and among the earliest large-scale representations of the human form. Then there’s
Portrait of an Unknown Woman ,afine Renaissance painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, of a wealthy, aristocratic lady thought to be a mistress of the Duke of Milan. Dating from the late 15th century, its dark, muted colours still glow, the woman’s skintone porcelain-smooth, and the nap of her rich, ruby-red velvet gown eminently strokeable.
I also loved an 11th century Chinese large metal cat, which apparently used to feature a rubber tube up its bottom, which was then blown into and used to make some kind of musical noise at ceremonial events; a vivid mosaic of an intense-eyed, melancholy-looking young Roman man; and a little bronze dragon with a beatific smile on its face, looking a bit like Puff, the Magic one. The final two galleries, titled ‘Challenging Modernity’ and ‘A Global Stage’, display 20th and 21st century art, with paintings and works by the likes of Picasso, Warhol, Matisse, Kandinsky and Man Ray. There is also a beautiful, crystal chandelier-like sculpture by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, which was commissioned especially for the museum.
Abu Dhabi’s other main draws include Ferrari World, a motorsport themed entertainment complex where you can experience the G-force of one of the world’s fastest cars and ride on terrifying rollercoasters, and Yas Waterworld, a 12 acre waterpark with flumes and slides galore. You can also do desert safaris in a 4x4, visit a falcon hospital, and enjoy a view of the whole city from the 74th floor observation deck of the Jumeirah Hotel.
Similarly to most of the other six emirates in the UAE, Abu Dhabi social life revolves around shopping malls and upmarket hotel restaurants and bars. They are clearly expecting more visitors soon; a new 39-storey, 563-room Fairmont hotel is under construction in Marina Village, which is also home to the rather ramshackle, if charming, Emirates Heritage Club. They’ve made a stab at a living museum, designed to look like a traditional Arabic fortified village, featuring various displays of local crafts, such as carpentry and pottery, as well as examples of traditional boats, and Bedouin tents. You’ll find a polished, 21st century version of a souk in the World Trade Centre (also designed by Norman Foster), where air-conditioned stalls sell spices, dates, scarves and stuffed toy camels. So yes, come for the camels – and the waterparks – but do stay for the culture.